no one wants to be lied to
no one wants to lie
many long that the world should stay
a springtime lullaby
green is the promise always
before the first rock's hurled
that's when the soul starts slipping
into another world
God keep the tie between us
beyond incredulous storms
Christ save my heart forever
and keep me forewarned
though no one wants to be lied to
no one wants to lie
this is the cause of history
and every tear that's cried
mary angela douglas 21 july 2022
some people are tygers
but not the radiant kind
made of butter rum candy
in the picture book sunshine
when you know, you're fine
at the sugar time tea time
behaving and behaving-
a sudden lunge in the conversation
on a pink and customary occasion
plunges you out into the garden
sunflower blind and weeping
the pupil enlarged to take in
the miseries and the switchback tracks.
mary angela douglas 19 july 2022.
we will survive all infringements
braced in the Ark where the soul can breathe
looking out on other seas
adrift yet not alone
time is a stone
I will drop down the well of dreams
to see the Infinite, the glaze on the stars
to turn aside from the lock stepped days.
mary angela douglas 18 july 2022
light falls on the surface of things
you look up and suddenly you realize
there is a customary splendor after all
so easily the light falls
without drawing attention to itself
without being made to
submitting no resume
not having to prove anything
more quietly than can be understood
on the simplest thing, the spot on the rug
the undusted corner
light sings
while you are thinking about the bad news
while you are rehearsing the final lines in the play
it does not interfere
it shines
why can't you be happy about that
mary angela douglas 17 july 2022
if I had written on a stony page
on rose alabaster in Italian script and. in a distant age
so chiseled my heart
in a dream a song without words
who would sing it but a realm of birds
long since departed;
the currents of air above great elevations
but speculation fades, like wildflowers on dark autumn's crest,
speculation which no star attends
and I am left to mend my words on earth
that may as well be flowers of frost or snow
that may as well be, for all I know.
mary angela douglas 15 july 2022
I wonder if we'll be on the other side of music one day
ushered in with pink programmes
or you will swing on the gate of it
as you did before, roller skating
in preludes, wading through scales., Scarlatti
geranium coloured.
will the notes sound like crystals
falling;will we still admire the azaleas?
will Grandmother spell out tone poems
while we listen to small records
of the great composers;
remember, when we're away
the reticence of Beethoven
how he was charged with Light
after the rains, the wind shaking the leaves free of raindrops.
will the sheet music be scattered through the rose garden
because we left the windows open
or glimpsed in the pink nightlight
short songs on the page, arranged.
our faces in cameo infant profile;the toy pianos at rest
and then, the nocturnes.the almond trees somewhere,
blossoming.
it seems so distant now
the way we dreamed it then:
both hands on the keys
the gardenias, scented through the back screen door
now we are carried each on such a wave
through portals on a ship that wasn't there before
we never booked passage on.
you said in your sleep a baby corsage!
I know you must have in your rabbit dreams
with the guardian angels and the metronome;
this is Heaven
this is home where
music goes on and Mama sings our birthdays
rose light through the curtains in the afternoons.
may it always be.and near the pines.
after a dry season
you will lift the piano lid
like a sunrise.
and small bouquets will arrive
for the recital.
mary angela douglas 14 january 2020
you don't know what to say
and so you crease the wind
or float upon the moment like a mute swan
or gather the light into your consciousness
as though you were the bride of the sun
and tomorrow is the darkest day of winter.
you don't know what to say
and so you let questions go stranded
gipsy like in a turquoise bracleted instant
losing the keys to language in some shimmering nebulae's
laundry day pocket
you don't know what to say
in the common fray
how to convey: the angels coming and going
in the clouds that are far away
to the whip smart practical
who want to they say
ferret out so they can put on display
what on earth can make you this way
that they may be over praised for their perspicacity.
mary angela douglas 12 july 2022
TO POETRY. FOREVER.
all that wild summons he had set upon the winds
surely the winds must have turned away
for there was no hearing
and so he called again
past all hearing, bearing-
in the seven woods
to no avail
except the moonlight beaded the desolate waters
like a veil never lifted, lifting
the sons and the daughters of dream
beyond the summers' green
and crowned thee with fame
and myth was stirred into an infinite flame
and poetry
though lamentation remained of all the lyric gifts
his best while his soul sang
what good was it to rename
the constellations in her honor
least of all to rechristen the old, old names.
mary angela douglas 3 july 2022
mirage like music comes and goes
oh beautiful mirror beyond the sing along
that the heart can't help but gaze upon
but the words fail every time.
i'll go away with music then
and not with the lyrics from the same old bin
for the jeweled haze
of the music seems so beyond it all
from the words that can hardly manage a
scrawl;that could never stand on their own.
i'll go away with the music
that refined
the after mirage and the after chime
and find the slot where my dreams have hid
and the language to live in them myself.
mary angela douglas 9 july 2022
(for Professor Anthony J.
Cervone)
last night I dreamed of the Escorial
of the paintings of saints with angular faces
Toledo in grey and the storms gathering
la vida es sueño or
it may have been and the siglo de oro
the siglo de oro the infanta with roses in a square of light
and skies glisten dark plum overnight
and I am singing a vagrant's tune
Garcia Lorca,kaleidoscope moon
moon of the verdant green
moon of the everlastingly verdant green
over the sobbing balconies.
I'm in the book of the small blue flowers;
how shall I play my pavane for you for the hour is late.
the pavane for you and the piano locked.
the bell tower's weathering of storms grows pale
too hard to believe. or to contemplate
a children's lullaby etched in silver.
a paper bird before the war.
a paper bird singing with brilliant plumage
a bird that cannot sing anymore.
the stage sets adored in miniature thrashed.
the sky as pink as the Alhambra at last
all of Andalusia gleams the rust of autumn
and life as a dream of a dream in a dream is past:
tiene que ser de esta moda
a caged music flying into the gold
into the gold of the siglo de oro
Cervantes furtive at the windowpane
laughing at the thought of fame.
the matador's cape is lined in flame,
Segovia. the music of amber.
flamenco barters by the hour.
while I am in a high high tower
with clouds and angels beckoning.
I want to go back to the Escorial.
to the way that I felt then from only the pictures in books.Iberia, to
the oranges composed in a bowl of blue
and that was the whole summer I learned Spanish
the way that I wanted to.
the soul of it the subtle shadings.
as if the kings were looking for you.
all the hidden Magi, for legendary Spain...
were looking for you for costly,
for lost lost time..
in the preterit of dreams.
mary angela douglas 18 july 2020;24 june 2022
Dear Reader,
Through a series of technical problems beyond my control or comprehension I lost access to this blog on February 23 2022
As of today through the grace and serendipity and kindness of the Living God I was able to regain access and will soon be posting new poems and in some cases, slightly revised poems. I truly hope you will like them.
In the interim I also set up a new blog with the address of www.poetrymaryangeladouglas.blogspot.com with the title of THE MARVELOUS FLOATING BOOKSHOP AND VIRTUAL ICE CREAM EMPORIUM and you are welcome there as well. At this blog I am posting my favorite poems of all my poems.
THANK YOU whoever you are and wherever you may be and God Bless You for reading my poems.
I hope and pray for every blessing on your life and family and friends and I wish you forever the JOY of poetry and everlasting beauty, truth and goodness.
Your Friend,
MARY ANGELA DOUGLAS
breaking the fourth wall and then the fifth
everyone is out of character;no one can play the scene
or the puppeteers break rank in a chimerical household
and the rest of them change allegiances
the way their ancestors used to change pocket handkerchiefs
a million lines in the sand and all of them crossed
and criss crossed
who can add the sum
everyone wants to subtract from
only God is constant
and the North Star
the mothers calling their children in
when it rains.
mary angela douglas 22 february 2022
there will be an end to all the inspections
of the bridges that washed out in Time
of the intervening angels
of the courts that signed off on
so many sorrows.
there will be an end to the days when no mercy was shown
to the casting of bitter stones
though we can't say when;
then true music will begin
overflowing, sparkling with hidden notes
with the refreshing of everything
and God will make plain
the reasons we were detained
and carry us over the flooding rivers again.
mary angela douglas 22 february 2022
on the days when we did nothing for the charlatans
how happy we were eating pints of strawberry ice cream
playing softball in the fields behind the church
going to visit the town attractions
keeping the peace and avoiding all factions
reading old library books
reading at all
and in the apple crisp Falls.
how disappointing we grew up to work for them
there being no other choice really.
still, we escaped in dreams
in twilight movie screens
and in time machines of our own design, however fragmentary
propping up the old fairy tales in our minds
while absently churning the butter.
snow blind in holy Decembers or in the early Spring
helping our Mothers
in stiff starched dresses and little doll coats
praying our way through the waltz's notes
recalling the gilded age,
the violets, the late roses.
mary angela douglas 21 february 2022
she had a heart like confetti glass
a something silver unsurpassed
the brightness of a cherry branch
a kind of resolute dreaminess
I see her castle soft as pearl
deconstructed in a stupid world
the signet ring she always wore
when calling never ship to shore
consigned to live among the dead
to a vast silence truly wed
a valentine beyond duress
and not a rose. pressed in a book.
mary angela douglas 21 february 2022
Christ loved the world like trying to love a landmine
leading the blind to green pastures
seeing the signs
loving across Time
and beyond the fiery edge of it
how can the heart not break at it
knowing what he risked for our sake
why can't the music stand still
thinking of what he willed.
tittle tattle of the everyday
what has it to say worth hearing
before such love
before such love
mary angela douglas 21 february 2022
with the striped tiger in the picture book
the sun overhead like a lemon drop
your one good pink parasol
you would have been content to live
staring at the pale blue walls forever
imagining the stars.
fate intervened with her lavish bouquets
her way of always interrupting the music
at the critical point.
at the critical point you grew wise as a saint
abandoning all to God
in the crevice of time a red rose brightened.
the gift of the Magi, the wish to be free
came unexpectedly into the picture
so splendidly.
mary angela douglas 20 february 2022
it's always sad and languorous
in the poems of that country
I can't go there anymore
bouncing like a pink cloud over the devastations
the lack of bread seems like a wedding to me
if there is any sun at all
and one true God to lean upon
there the brittle straw will never be spun to gold
why would I want to grow old there
anyway, I won't be let in
should I say I am sorry the moonlight makes me happy
even behind the clouds
that I treasure a gulp of air more than wine
and still love the moss bright poems
of damask roses and eglantine.
mary angela douglas 20 february 2022
music shall fade when wandering ends
when it pays the dear Sender to rescind our coronating suns
and we have vanished, a thing difficult
to think upon and so we dream of it.instead
softening, blurring the edges; shading the watercolour
aftermaths we shall not witness, alas;
dreaming feels closer to consolation and for the
dread of it, pondered on the back of that
taciturn blue black raven
as it is said, all devouring Time.
forever nibbling at the strawberries.
dreaming is best
for how can logic help us when we must disappear
yet snow does, every year and rains will wash away again
chalk pictures of the children from the summer pavements
then
we will leave everything
mere dew on the roses that we are
in our glad trajectories, trembling a little
stray kites let go
as clouds leave the landscape and thus, the painting, bare of
the blazing tableaux
and stranger to the mind, to know put simply:
we will leave all homework behind and not be counted tardy.
music shall fade then, kaleidoscope turned
when we will no longer, longer yearn
to add up old scores or explore the blue ranges of our thought
or Saturdays at the museums;
to live, folklorically.and drink coffee rich with cream
from a thick cup oh
fairytale, coming apart at the seams
ah lyric lyric, chirring cricket, in the grass
how will I leave you whom I loved not last.
mary angela douglas 19 february 2022
I favor the stories that trail off into the mists
like vague Queens drifting with their velvet trains
and nothing lost and nothing gained discernably
for the Princess sighs: how tiresome to be
always spelling it out for the jugglers who
may die at sunrise
or the picture puzzle that shows only
the small winter birds picking at the glaze on the puddles
as though seeking silver cherries from those boughs
in the pavement mirrors
what we shall call it, the need for mystery
as to How Things Turned Out
if the chords ever resolved;and did the clouds move on?
or what it feels like in dreams to be stranded
waking up suddenly at an outside truck
shifting gears
a dog barking pompously on the lawn
because it cannot fetch the moon
or eat at table with a silver spoon
which one?
who wants a predictable predictable
when everything in us is a search for the vanishing
subtle music, play on
rose of no closing hour.in Time's millennial bower,
bloom. and we will leave you there.
mary angela douglas 19 february 2022
may we be in love with the living day
we who have traveled far from
the realms of childhood or so we're told
or made to believe;
with the peach, the gold
and silver finishings of clouds
the fragrances of rain in all seasons
the halos around the moon
the cropping of stone.
I have loved the earth in a quiet way
alone
a small bell ringing in His vast carillons
still with the mingled voices of the past to say,
in a fairy tale, seeming:
do not depart from me oh loveliness of evening
may I see still the rainbows at night converging
and never blind to music sense in my one true soul
when gathering all my beautiful suppositions, oh
the billion watt white gold
candelabras of the sun.
mary angela douglas 19 february 2022
remember when the school readers used to hold
a suffusion of fairy tales and rocket ships
in one jeweled balance
of the pearl swung day, the day swung up into the clouds
and the day brought golden apples to our doorstep
our doorstep of wine and cream coloured clover;
the fields of stars to the blue cast twilight
our sudden too early yet nostalgias
Christmas onsets, the Easter lilies tolling
turning the page and we learned to speak in preserving amber,
just about everything, and ate honey encrusted toast
and the honeycomb thick in the early mornings
honeycomb thick and fast upon the bread of the past
I can recall, the slate shadows of afternoons at last
and covered wagons crossing a stream that become a flood
the native tunes the bird tracks in the woods,
the parting of ferns
oh everything we learned
that poem about the mud and the yellow rose
and another one all cat shivery
with the red and gold of leaves
and the pumpkin frights, the child in the quilted bed
up late at night
and comforted by shadow puppets on mysterious walls
by the cradle hymns sung lowly
and the wind that is fluted where nobody knows
and called to you in dreams singing to you
of strawberries and the well sewn seam
and little paper cups of ice cream with a wooden spoon
when vanilla tasted so moonbright-velvety
or porch light lamp glow when you were Queen,
attended by the pale frenzy of moths
or the milk glass vase with the garden roses entranced us
beyond all Cause, the tinkling, glass bright of Chopin
on Grandmother's studio piano
and the stories where children ruled and were kind and
even benevolent, and all Time, all Time was lent to us then
new minted for us to spend willy nilly
as though we had centuries to linger here over summer board games
and be silly in birthday party crowns
and most of the time climbing the hills of green
if not, renown
beneath a mulberry sun our laughter full of flowers
won the day and the kite flown stars in vacant lot hours,
all of them, were ours, the heavenly chime of words,
the apple white maytimes, the angels smiling
almost hidden in the pictures.stop motion scene
the birds of night never eating the silver breadcrumbs
the milkweed under that butterfly sun, the heart not torn,
not torn at least, not permanently from its rusty hinge
in the Kingdom Come,
and all storms leading to Oz.
mary angela douglas 18 february 2022
God at his lonely outpost tracks the stars
answering random calls
responding with
the aurora borealis
keeps up with things
waiting in the wings
outside of Time
watching the angels climb
gold Jacob's ladder
what if the paint splatters
because He is dreaming other things
like Daedalus, of wings
while painting the clouds again
peach or is it pearl, weeping for the world
it is no sin to think of Him this way
in love with the Milky Way
hearing each thing that we say
sensitive to a fault
and trying so earnestly
not to be in the way.
what train could we build him
he could arrive on
who made the earth
where the tracks run now
and every brindled cow
and each least motion of the seas
but more than these, more than these
I hear Him say through the conch shell wind
through the icy turning of the leaves
I have loved relentlessly
the broken kingdom of men.
mary angela douglas 17 february 2022
I found the word 'God" languishing under its own palm tree
what have you done with my starry Hands it wept
while I slept dreamless.
I found the word "God" fugitive in the mirrors of the world
of you and I when all fairy tales crept by
even perfecting the tiny streams, snow melt in the early Springs
by my lost violets in the diary of the great befores.
it kept calling after me in triolets
of ravishing bird song and it was on the diamond wind prolonged
for the poets who refused to let it in
see, it said, shyly
I have taken my heart and cut it into all the rose pieces
and left them in the sky only for you
I have spent every coin of light
the treasury of the snows
and everything that grows
please may you only
mention My Name in one or two refrains
or think of me again as you would of clouds,
in reverie
or as a somewhat melancholy friend, archaic
anathema; though you hold me in disdain,
wounded for Beauty.
my dove. my dove.you are all I love.
take me out of the root cellar
and plant me in your desolate language!
my errant lambs.I am that I am.
mary angela douglas 16 february 2022
we'll dream the flowers back to life
so sprightly they will arise again
in this eternal spring we'll win
co conspirationally with God, (our friend)
each petal blazing like a heart defiant
on a forbidding wind and sailing
past all the drear days
and that quite airily
merrily in the unseen meadows
soon to be seen; perfumes made visible
and the lilies laughing.
let the snow queen leave
no fond farewells in her calligraphy on
frosted glass.
untouched by her disdain,we'll pass
and wearing our mittens of rose
and singing, singing by the holly berry bush
we will breathe out the clouds of cold
at the school bus corner
and make impossible summer plans
under a zinnia coloured moon
and read the poems of Spring
of the pale, pale green
in between ice storms
the prisms rainbow-shattering at our feet
the February sleet, departed.
mary angela douglas 13 february 2022
for the blessed balm of chosen words
I give you thanks oh Lord and for the cloud wrought
day in vivid display sunrise or sunset of your
alpha and omega the circuit of beauty
thou, and thou alone
returning to us in every wave;
have made known to us even as children
your ineffable colours, fragrance of earth
and the blossoming of everything
perceived and felt in quiet hours
you are all ours in a hundred thousand ways
how should we forget you now
that we lean into the wind like the grasses
before winter's sheers
or feel ourselves to be ebbing toward Heaven
a little at a time, with the music of the years
a little at a time the stars climb the skies and to our eyes
seem then to descend
but what if everything we dreamed then we dream more and more
this close to the shore
of our disappearing.
mary angela douglas 13 february 2022
under the spiraling galaxies
lodge no plea make no demand
learn to live in a hidden land
not to speak in the startling winds
only to weave the moonlit Strand
deeper than ever and stronger than time
the golden song and the silver chime
into a music none can fault
the hint of His heart so finely wrought.
mary angela douglas 11 february 2022
is that the name you go by or is that your real name?
some people get asked that a lot
many people who have nicknames
or maybe this is a question I remember
that has now gone out of style
some people get laughed at for their names
especially on loud raucous classroom
afternoons
some people despite their outwardly beautiful names
are still made fun of
there is a certain negative creativity in the world to
account for that or on the playground
so, that they will require of you your soul
pronouncing it into blizzards
but what I am drawn to now is the feeling of that phrase
your real name
in whose language
on what spectrum
for what reason do you need to know my real name
my name is a stone I will drop down the well of antiquity
rather than to disclose one syllable of it
to the scorners
my real name will echo location radar beyond the beyond
in a wind flecked with reticent stars on the outer crusts of
jeweled Space
or splash invisibly over the realm the thin rim of gold on the
coffee cup, demitasse or break like a glass wave on a glass
shore forevermore
and be stirred into the cream
in a dream where no one drinks it but me
my name will melt like tin and splash down the Tin Woodman's
chin past emerald safaris;
my real name will whirl up in a pink paper airplane
circling the demesnes of God
where perhaps on a heart coloured non day in Eternity
it will wind up on his bulletin board on display.
a wisp in a frame of Pearl.
mary angela douglas 9 february 2022
when the last cell flickers like a waning star
may we still be found believing as we always did
that the last breath mattered
in a foreign wind;
the last note in the native song, prolonged and crystalline
that music should go on and on
no emerald lost from the setting;
for each note carried on the page composed
a secret and unfailing angel.
mary angela douglas 6 february 2022
say farewell to the pearl moon through the clouds
drifting no more;goodbye
to the orange and lollipop sun
to the rose beds when the wind is free
and scatters the tea roses endlessly
to the scent of new mown grass
to the Cinderella carriage gold and glass
to the kaleidoscope raspberry and olive in
its configurations shaken into flowers
to hours and hours of pretending to be the queen
the swans in transformation to sing to sing the
songs about the rose and briar
of Joan of Arc passing through the fire
to a white gold glory and, and the Fairy Tree besides
but she said no. I never will.
and this is a true story.
mary angela douglas 5 february 2022
it won't make a difference to the stars
if my nebulous name floats among them
scarcely breathed
but how I would like to be at least somehow
written in the margins of the book of God
perhaps in lime crayon, or to be a pink cloud
on His faultless horizon
in the chapter of what unfolds,
when a mysterious rose appears there
and cannot die
even amid the snows of all those pages.
mary angela douglas 5 february 2022
who had written on the page of morning
this sky as bright as yellow diamonds to our eyes
and factored in the rose wave glowing
and sent to us the birds in silver singing
the night has passed arise my child arise
Him will we follow and not lose the thread
of all the beauty said and left unsaid
and sense the ranging tenses of His heart
wherever we may go
whenever we must depart.
mary angela douglas 2 february 2022
sometimes did it seem to you on the roller coaster
it wasn't we who moved, but the scenery flickering behind us
as in old movies it sometimes happens
when the carnation sun perhaps the little cerise cloud are sepia
toned and the film score lavish with violins
and we are not ourselves alone
but attended by mystical angels keeping the camera still.
then we were invited to participate in certain world events
manufactured, on the sly with the whole carnival going by
on wheels, the other direction
so it is to live with our imperfections
and yet to be flooded with Grace
how it feels in the slipstream of Time
as imagined by the newspapers
with supra fantastic headlines:
somewhere we seem to be lined up
our heads counted as if we
were on a field trip
and at the end we may go home
and gold painted summer will be ours
but oh my friend
school days are over
and some should have always been
never about to begin
and yet in the heart a secret lily is tended
that by now, has bloomed into the stars.
mary angela douglas 1 february 2022
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